NPR reports on American hypersensitivity -- now found online

I heard a story on NPR's "All Things Considered" the other day which left me shaking my head, not because the story was about something important but because the story could have been considered newsworthy.

On hearing your story about “many instances of homophobia, racism, and misogyny” in online video games – where players can easily just unplug from an environment they might find distasteful, my only reaction was amazement at how overly-pampered, hyper-sensitive a Nanny State we must live in where people feel that they have an absolute right not to be offended. And other people, the Nannies of the Nanny State, feel they have a right to determine what is and is not offensive.

While I acknowledge a private gaming network’s absolute right to set rules of participation, one can only hope that offering some verbal offense in a game where the object is to dismember or disintegrate your opponent is not by default seen as out of bounds. In the meantime, the fact that Mr. Bakalar and your program feel it worth reporting that there are people who don’t meet your politically-correct standards of behavior is a much more damning indictment of our nation than almost any online gaming behavior could ever be.